CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION 4
1.1 Topic of the thesis... 4
1.2 Text material and methods.. 4
1.3 Hypothesis.. 5
2 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS... 6
2.1 Discourse.6
2.2 Discourse analysis...6
2.3 Levels of analysis7
2.4 Text. 8
2.5 Context 9
2.6 Functions of language. 10
2.7 Text linkage.10
2.7.1 Cohesion10
2.7.2 Coherence. 11
3 ADVERTISING... 12
3.1 Role of advertising..12
3.2 Defining advertisements as a genre ... 12
3.3 Analysis of advertising as discourse12
3.4 Language of advertising. 13
4 LANGUAGE OF THE NEWSPAPERS.. 14
4.1 Media in general.... 14
4.2 What is a newspaper? . 14
4.2.1 Target groups of newspapers.... 16
4.3 Types of newspapers... 16
4.4 The Times... 18
4.4.1 History.. 18
4.4.2 Contemporary The Times.. 19
5 PERSONAL ADVERTISEMENTS. 20
5.1 Personal advertisement as a part of communication... 20
5.2 History of personal advertisements..... 20
5.3 Personal advertisements in the newspapers 21

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 5.4 Strategy of personal advertisements 22
5.5 Explicitness and implicitness in personal advertising. 22
5.5.1 Spoken vs.written text22
5.6 Aspects influencing interpretation... 23
6 GENDER AND LANGUAGE...24
6.1 Gender differences in general... 24
6.2 Gender and communication.. 24
6.3 Gender and conversational style25
6.4 Social consequences of gender differences in language26
6.4.1 Miscommunication between men and women...26
6.4.2 Topics of conversation... 27
7 PRACTICAL PART
7.1 Levels of analysis of personal advertisements. 28
7.2 Structure of personal advertisements... 30
7.3 Personal advertisements written by women.32
7.3.1 Self-description of women.33
7.3.1.1 Self-identification of women.. 33
7.3.1.2 Description of appearance.. 36
7.3.1.3 Description of qualities and personality. 38
7.3.1.4 Summary of self-description42
7.3.2 Partner-description. 43
7.3.2.1 Partner-identification...43
7.3.2.2 Description of partners appearance45
7.3.2.3 Description of partners qualities and personality.. 46
7.3.2.4 Summary of partner-description..48
7.3.3 Intended relationship..49
7.3.4 Summary of advertisements written by women.51
7.3.4.1 The typical womens advertisement52
7. 4 Personal advertisements written by men.....52
7.4.1 Self-description of men...52
7.4.1.1 Self-identification of men52
7.4.1.2 Description of appearance...54
7.4.1.3 Description of qualities and personality..56
7.4.1.4 Summary of self-description59

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 7.4.2 Partner-description..60
7.4.2.1 Partner-identification...60
7.4.2.2 Description of partners appearance62
7.4.2.3 Description of partners qualities and personality...62
7.4.2.4 Summary of partner-description..65
7.4.3 Intended relationship..66
7.4.4 Summary of advertisements written by men..68
7.4.4.1 The typical mens advertisement.68
7.5 Gender differences....69
7.5.1 Self-description differences....69
7.5.2 Partner-description differences...71
7.5.3 Intended relationship differences....72
7.5.4 Explicitness and implicitness in personal advertisements .73
8 CONCLUSION...74
REFERENCES..77
SUMMARY (RESUME).......79
APPENDIX
A. A list of abbreviations used in the advertisements and the thesis..80
B. Copies of all the advertisements used for the thesis

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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Topic of the thesis

The thesis deals with personal advertisements in The Times. Advertising is a

relatively new genre and the topic of personal advertisements is very interesting
because nowadays personal advertisements represent one of the very spread means
of meeting new people and potential life partners.
This thesis takes a special regard to gender differences as well. It tries to explore
how the differences between men and women influence personal advertisements, to
what extent the meaning of personal advertisements is explicit or implicit and if
there exit considerable differences of explicitness or implicitness between women
and men.

1.2 Text material and methods

The corpus used for this thesis is comprised of 553 personal advertisements
published in two copies of The Times (see Figure 1). The first issue comes from 7th
December 2007 and the second one was published on 15th February 2008. Each
advertisement contains 25 words in average, whence it follows that the corpus under
analysis is created with more than 13,600 words.

aged 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 unspecified total

women 3,3% 11% 30% 38,1% 16% 1,6% 0 100%

men 0 8,5% 36% 31,5% 16% 7,7% 0,3% 100%

altogether 3,3% 9,7% 32,7% 33% 16% 5% 0,3% 100%

Fig. 1 Age cathegory of authors of personal advertisements

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 Concerning the methods used, the advertisements will be under the discourse
and sociolinguistics analysis, dealing primarily with the impact of the text on its
readers and language beyond the text.

1.3 Hypothesis

This thesis deals actually with communication between men and women and takes
special regards to language differences between them. It focuses primarily on how
people describe themselves, their potential partners and what kind of relationship
they intend, what kinds of expressions they use for it, what they concentrate on.
From the perspective of general stereotypes it is presupposed that men will put
greater emphasis on success (by self-description) and on appearance by partner-
description, whereas women will mention their appearance and will attach
importance to partners success.
Besides, there may be certain differences in structure and content of
advertisements; men will be probably less explicit and their advertisements will
contain more ambiguous expressions than the womens advertisements.

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2 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

2.1 Discourse

The term discourse refers both to what a text producer meant by a text and what a
text means to the receiver (Widdowson 2007: 7). As Widdowson claims, people
produce texts to get a message across, to express ideas and beliefs, to explain
something, to get other people to do certain things or to think in a certain way
(Widdowson 2007: 6).
According to the Verdonks definition discourse is process of activation of a
text by relating it to a context of use (Verdonk 2002: 18). It follows that a
successful analysis has to consider not only the text but its context as well. The
terms text and context will be explained later.
To simplify all the definitions, it is possible to label discourse as a language
hidden in the text or language beyond the text.

2.2 Discourse analysis definition

According to Wikipedia definition, discourse analysis is a general term for a

number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken or signed language use. 1 As this
definition suggests, text can be explored and analysed from various points of view. It
is possible to focus on purposes of the text, level of formality, participants of
communication, use of words, sounds, grammatical structures etc. It means a text
can be analysed by different levels. These levels will be mentioned and described in
the next section of the thesis.
Yule views discourse analysis as the analysis of language in use. The
discourse analyst focuses on an investigation of what that language is used for, it
means purpose and aim of communication, as has been mentioned before (Yule
1983: 1).

1
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

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 Cook admits the prime focus of discourse analysis on language, nevertheless
he emphasizes the importance to examine the context of communication: who is
communicating with whom and why; in what kind of society and situation; through
what medium; how different types and acts of communication evolved (Cook 2003:
3).

2.3 Levels of analysis

Crystal (1997: 15) mentions a few levels of analysis which are highly important for
a detailed analysis of a text. Each level represents one area of linguistics such as
lexicology or phonetics and phonology. On the basis of these areas different levels
of analysis can be distinguished: phonetic and phonological, graphological,
grammatical, lexical. Verdonk mentions importance of pragmatics and claims that
pragmatics is concerned with the meaning of language in discourse, that is, when it
is used in an appropriate context to achieve particular aims (Verdonk 2002: 19).
He mentions semantics too, which is the study of formal meanings as they
are encoded in the language of texts (Verdonk 2002: 19). These two fields of study,
pragmatics and semantics, concern the extrinsic contextual factors realated to
contextual and textual meaning. These factors affect linguistic meaning of a text
(Verdonk 2002: 19). The two levels, the semantic one and the pragmatic one will be
added to the following classification of the levels (arranged from the lowest to the
highest levels in the system of language):

Phonetic and phonological level deals with the sound of a text. This level
concentrates on repetitions of words or other expressions, alliteration,
rhymes, rhythm, special pronunciation, intonation; it investigates if there are
any stressed words in the text and for what purposes. This level is important
for analysis of a poem because of a huge amount of rhymes, repetitions or
alliteration.
Graphological level focuses on any kinds of visual organizing of a text,
such as paragraphs, headlines, typeface, colours, pictures if added,
ortography, punctuation.

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 Grammatical level the main aim is to analyse the internal structure of the
units called sentences in a language, and the way these function in
sequences (Crystal 1997: 18). This level focuses on syntax; it means the
length of sentences, clauses and tenses used in sentences etc.
Lexical level deals with vocabulary on the basis of morphology and
lexicology. It examines the origin of the words, their structure, composition,
abbreaviations, phrasal words, using words in various types of collocations
and idioms etc.
Semantic level studies the linguistic meaning of a text over and above the
meaning of the lexical items taken singly (Crystal 1997: 19). The similar
definition by Verdonk has been mentioned above.
Pragmatic level focuses on purposes of a text, it means, why the text was
written, who is the target group, which level of society the target group
comes from. This level tries to elicit as well if there is an impact of the target
group.

Each level will be applied to the personal advertisements in the practical part
of this thesis.

2.4 Text

There are several definitions of the term text. A piece of language can be recognized
as a text because of its location in a particular context (Verdonk 2002: 17). It
means it does not depend on the length of the text, even single sentence units or
single word units, such as e.g. danger, keep left etc. are considered to be a text.
These short texts are meaningful in themselves, it means they are complete in
terms of communicative meaning (Verdonk 2002: 17). Verdonk also emphasizes a
significant role of context because the same text can offer different information if it
appears in different context.
Text viewed by Yule refers to the verbal record of a communicative act
(Yule 1982: 6). Text can be divided into written and spoken one. Focusing on a
written text, the notion of text as a printed record is familiar in the study of

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literature. A text may be differently presented in different editions, with different
type-face, on different sizes of paper, in one or two columns, and we still assume,
from one edition to the next, that the different presentations all represent the same
text (Yule 1982: 6).
Widdowson adverts to differences between spoken and written texts as well
and focuses on what is typical for speech tones of voice, pause etc. and written
communication besides typeface mentioned above also other modes of
communication pictures, diagrams, charts (Widdowson 2007: 7).

2.5 Context

As has been already mentioned, context is very important for analysing a text, hence
the discourse analyst has to take account of the context in which a piece of
discourse appears (Yule 1982: 27). Context can be described as the environment
or circumstances in which language is used (Yule 1982: 27).
Linguists usually mention three types of context: verbal, situational,
pragmatic. Dontcheva-Navratilov labels the verbal context with the term co-text
and describes it as the utterances of the other participants in a dialogue as well as
the preceding and the following parts of a written text such as chapters or
paragraphs and indicates that it has also an influence on the choice of meaning
and language means in a stretch of text (Dontcheva-Navrtilov 2005: 13).
Urbanov emphasizes importance of the verbal context as well and adds that this
context specify significance of the given statement (Urbanov and Oakland 2002:
27, transl. by VZ). Situational context is related to the situation in which the
communication takes place (Urbanov and Oakland 2002: 27, transl. by VZ). The
widest understanding of context pragmatic context is based on shared
knowledge.

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2.6 Functions of language

Jakobson (Dontcheva-Navrtilov 2005: 15) deals with the classification of

language functions and claims that this classification uses as its basis six
constitutive factors of the act of communication, each of which is considered to
determine a different function of language (Dontcheva-Navrtilov 2005: 15).
According to those constitutive factors six basic language functions can be
distinguished:

Referential
Emotive
Conative
Phatic
Poetic
Metalingual

For purposes of advertisements two functions are the most important:

referential (providing facts and being oriented towards context) and conative
(aiming at the addressee, when the addresser makes addressee do something). The
poetic function can be also important by its focusing on playing with words, which
is often typical for advertisements.

2.7 Text linkage

2.7.1 Cohesion

Cohesion is the unity of discourse and refers to relations of meaning that exist
within the text, and that define it as a text (Halliday 2007: 4). Halliday mentions
grammatical and lexical cohesion, because cohesion is expressed partly through the
grammar and partly through the vocabulary (Halliday 2007: 5). McCarthy (1991:
35-69) deals with these two types of cohesion too and gives some examples of each

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type. Dontcheva-Navrtilov appends structural cohesion to the two major types of
cohesion (Dontcheva-Navrtilov 2005: 29):

Grammatical cohesion conjunction, reference, substitution and ellipsis

Lexical cohesion repetition of words, synonymy, antonymy
Structural cohesion- given-new information and theme-focus organisation,
parallelism

The recognization of cohesion of a text enables the identification of

connections that are linguistically signalled, like those between a pronoun and a
previous noun phrase (Widdowson 2007: 45). These connections are a part of
grammatical and lexical cohesion mentioned above. To simplify the definitions,
cohesion is a visible structure of a text.
Nevertheless, as Yule emphasizes, cohesion itself is not sufficient for a
complete understanding of a text. It is very easy to make a cohesive text with a lot of
connections but it is possible that the text will be hard to interpret. A text must be
linked somehow, not only with help of conjunctions or references but it has to make
sense to readers or listeners. If it does, the text is considered to be coherent (Yule
2006: 125).

2.7.2 Coherence

It is possible to describe coherence as everything fitting together well (Yule 2006:

126). As has been already remembered above, coherence is important for
understanding a text as a unit and for distinguishing a well-fitted text from those
ones not coherent.
A great emphasis is put not on the structure or words of a text but on people,
because it is people who make sense of what they read and hear (Yule 2006: 126).
For that reason it is possible to create a meaningful text without expressing all
words. That is connected with importance of language-users knowledge of how
conversation works (Yule 2006: 127). It means that sometimes everything is not
expressed or said precisly but the readers or participants of a conversation are still

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able to understand what was being said or written on the basis of some previous
knowledge.

3 ADVERTISING IN GENERAL

3.1 Role of advertising

Advertising is a part of everyday life. It can be seen everywhere, not only in media
such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines but also in billboards, in means of
transportation or in public places.
The primary aim of advertising is to catch attention and the ultimate aim is to
provide some information about the advertised product or service for the purpose to
make people buy it. To what extent the creators of advertisements are successful
with providing information has a great impact on the addressees, either negative or
positive.
Advertising often invokes tempestuous discussions, some people rejects it
completely but the truth is everyone needs it. It is one of the easiest way how to
inform quickly about a product, good or service.

3.2 Defining advertisements as a genre

The defintion taken from the Collins Concise Dictionary sees advertisement as the
promotion of goods or services for sale through impersonal media (Cook 2003: 9).
However, as he emphasizes, there are advertisements which do not sell anything,
but plead or warn or seek support (Cook 2003: 10).

3.3 Analysis of advertising as discourse

Discourse in the sense used for advertising is text and context together, interacting
in a way which is perceived as meaningful and unified by the participants (Cook

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2003: 4). As Cook claims the although main focus of discourse analysis is on
language, it is not concerned with language alone (Cook 2003: 3). According to
him discourse analysis examines the context of communication as well, it means
who the participants of communication are, why they communicate and in what kind
of situation and what relationship is between them. He also mentions that discourse
analysis must consider combination pictures and music with language if added to its
meaning (Cook 2003: 3).
Discourse analysis views language and context holistically (Cook 2003: 4).
Cook focuses on terms context and text. Text is separated from context and
context includes items mentioned below:

Substance: the physical material which carries or relays text

Music and pictures
Paralanguage: voice quality, gestures, facial expressions and touch (in
speech), and choice of typeface and letter sizes (in writing)
Situation: the properties and relations of objects and people in the vicnity of
the text, as perceived by the participants
Co-text: text which precedes or follows that under analysis, and which
participants judge to belong to the same discourse
Intertext: text which the participants perceive as belonging to other
discourse, but which they associate with the text under consideration, and
which affects their interpretation
Participants: their intentions and interpretations, knowledge and beliefs,
attitudes, affiliations and feelings. Participants are usually described as
senders and receivers
(Cook 2003: 4)

3.4 Language of advertising

Advertising has its special language, it focuses on the addressees attention with the
aim to influence them positively. Ads use fictions, word play, compressed story-
telling, stylized acting, photography, cartoons, puns, and rhythms in ways which are

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often memorable, enjoyable and amusing. The words and details of ads often come
to peoples minds more readily than those of novels and poems and plays, and they
are often recalled with more laughter and enthusiasm (Cook 2003: 3).
As it is obvious the language used in advertising plays a significant role.
Generally considered, the more extraordinary, distinctive and interesting the
advertising is, the bigger chance it has to catch peoples attention and to go deeply
into their subconscious.

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4 LANGUAGE OF THE NEWSPAPERS

4.1 Media in general

It is generally recognized that media are very powerful and have a great impact on
the broadest public. They can influence peoples opinions and their points of view.
As Bell adds, to the sociologist of language, media are one of the main language-
forming institutions in society, along with education and government (Bell 1991:
7). Media serve for receiving and gaining information and usually provide the first
informational source.

4.2 What is a newspaper?

As suggested from the term newspaper, the content of a newspaper will be

primarily devoted to the news of the day, and some analysis and comment on this
news (Reah 2002: 2). Nevertheless, news is not the only genre creating
newspapers, a newspaper is very eclectic, from the stylistic point of view (Crystal
1997: 173). Newspapers are filled with articles on various topics, reviews,
advertising, entertainment, columns, editorials and imaginative writing of various
kinds (Crystal 1997: 173).
Concerning the content of news or any kind of a newspaper text, headlines
can play a very important role, because the headline should encapsulate the story in
a minimum number of words, attract the reader to the story and, if it appears on the
front page, attract the reader to the paper (Reah 2002: 13). However, because of the
purpose to attract peoples attention, the headlines are often ambiguous and
misleading and do not actually contain the exact idea of the article (used typically in
tabloids).

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 Dealing with the vocabulary of the headlines, words should be short,
attention getting and effective (Reah 2002: 15). Speaking about syntax, headlines
often provide verbless and non-finite sentences.
The newspapers have a very specific language, which is called journalese.
Crystal defines this term as a composite, a blend of what is characteristic of a
number of different kinds of journalistic material (Crystal 1997: 174) and claims
that there is not one, but a number of journaleses that can be found between the
pages of the daily and weekly press and while they do have a certain amount in
common, their overall styles are different (Crystal 1997: 173). As Crystal adds, the
prime function of the newspapers is to inform and to report, however, as will be
mentioned in the next paragraph, it is not the only function.

4.2.1 Target groups of newspapers

Except transmission of any information, newspapers often focus on a certain target

group, whose stance they intend to direct. Market researches are done to elicit who
the readers of certain newspapers are. There are more components how to
distinguish the target groups, e.g. according to their political orientation, age,
education or social status. However, even when the newspapers themselves try to
identify their readers and label them, such as e.g. the Sun reader or Guardian
readers, the groups do not exist in the way the newspapers try to pretend. Most
broadsheet readers usually read also rival newspapers as well as probably all sorts of
people read tabloids. (Reah 2002: 50).

4.3 Types of newspapers

There are a few ways how the newspapers are possible to be divided. The first one is
to view newspapers according to their format and content. There are two basic types
of newspapers, broadsheet and tabloid.
According to a definition taken from Shorter Oxford Dictionary, tabloid is
characterized as a newspaper, usually popular in style with easily assimilable news
and features, bold headlines, large photographs and pages half the size of those of

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the average broadsheet. As far as the topics is concerned, tabloids often provide
various sensational stories, any crime news; they usually focus on life of celebrities,
political scandals and gossips from society. As it is generally recognized, in tabloids
headlines play an inevitable role, they usually take more space than the articles.
Headlines use graphology, the visual aspect of text, to draw the readers eye (Reah
2002: 32). They rely on colours and especially word plays, intertextuality,
ambiguity, loaded language, omission of words and sound such as alliteration and
rhyme (Reah 2002: 32). The best known tabloids in United Kingdom are The Sun,
The Sunday Mirror, The Mirror.
Tabloids have usually bigger circulation and cost much more than the second
type broadsheet newspapers. The term broadsheet usually indicates quality
papers and refers to the size of the newspapers, which si much larger than the
tabloids have. The broadsheet format is described by Wikipedia as the largest of the
various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages and is
considered as the most popular format for the dissemination of printed news2.
Broadsheet newspapers focus on more serious topics, such as politics, economics,
education, business, they contain editorial comments, long articles and wide
vocabulary and usually concentrate on more educated population. The articles take
more space than photos and headlines. The best known broadsheets in United
Kingdom are The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The
Financial Times. The British national newspaper The Times stands on the frontier,
with its format it belongs to the category tabloid but the content and topics are
entirely of broadsheet.
The next classification of newspapers is according to their frequency of
issuing; from that point of view daily and weekly newspapers can be distinguished.
British daily newspapers are e.g. The Times, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Mail etc.
Weekly newspapers are usually published at the weekends, respectively on Sundays,
which they have in their names, such as The Sunday Mirror, The Sunday Telegraph,
The Sunday Times (Wikipedia).

2
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadsheet

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4.4 The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper with the headquarters in Wapping,
London, it is the original Times newspaper3, which lends the name Times to
many other newspapers around the world, such as The New York Times, The Irish
Times and The Times of India (Wikipedia).

4.4.1 History

The original name of The Times was The Daily Universal Register, founded by John
Walter in 1785. He himself was in a role of an editor. The title was changed on 1
January in 1788. Later his son took over the ownership of The Times. Then, a few
other persons changed off in the positions of general editors, such as e.g. Thomas
Barnes or John Thadeus Delane and The Times became more successful, had bigger
circulation and was influenced by politics.
In the nineteenth century, during the American Civil War, The Times became
the representator of the wealthy classes view and did not support slavery. From the
1850s The Times had to envisage the constantly increasing competition of other
press, in particular The Daily Telefraph and The Morning Post, which led to loss of
circulation at the beginning of the 20th century.
Under the following owners or editors, such as Lord Northcliffe and Sir
William Haley, The Times underwent innumerable changes and became more
interesting, attractive and modern. In 1967 The Times were sold to a Canadian
magnate Roy Thomson and from that time the advertisements so far published in the
front page were replaced by news.
In 1981 The Times was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News International.
Murdoch made a lot of changes based on technology development and he is owner
of The Times till nowadays (Wikipedia).

3
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times#History

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4.4.2 Contemporary The Times

The Times is being labeled as traditionally a moderately centre-right newspaper and

a supporter of the Conservatives. Its price is 70p, on Saturdays 1, 40. Its
circulation is almost 700,000 copies per day. The target group is English middle-
class4. From 5th September 2005 The Times contains its supplement called times2
which features various lifestyle columns. The supplement includes an Image of the
day and Modern Morals column, dealing with peoples moral dilemmas. The
times2 contains also TV, poetry column, reviews, and puzzles. It is issued daily
except of Saturday, when a variety of other appendices about health, travel, culture,
homes and gardens and others are supplemented to The Times (Wikipedia).

4
Middle class is defined like those who have more years of education and perform non-manual
work (Yule 2006: 206)

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5 PERSONAL ADVERTISEMENTS

5.1 Personal advertisement as a part of communication

Personal advertisements such as any kind of advertising have become a part of

peoples life and can be found in all media. Probably the highest representation they
have on the Internet and in the press, in the newspapers and in the magazines
respectively.
Personal advertising transmits communication between people, usually
between men and women for the purpose of drawing attention of an ideal
companion. The creators of the advertisements have usually limited options, because
they have to rely only on words expressing their intention, unlike other types of
advertisements which involve both verbal and visual aspects, i.e. pictures that are
easier to understand and have more impact than words (Vlkov 2000: 29).
Personal advertisements can be divided into certain sections called classifieds 5,
e.g. men seeking women, women seeking men, men seeking men, women seeking
women or seeking friends (this classification has been taken from The Times).

5.2 History of personal advertisements

The first personal advertisement comes from an issue of Collection for Improvement
of Husbandry and Trade, which was published in England on July 19, 1695
(Vlkov 2000: 42).
In the past, before seventeenth century, people did not have any need to
belong, they lived in communities with their families and friends, where everyone
had a position and despite their possible objections against community rules, they

5
A short ad in a newspaper or magazine (usually in small print) and appearing along with other ads
of the same type, see http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/CLASSIFIEDAD

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never felt alone. Later, in consequences of industrial changes followed by migration,
people often lost their secure position given by the community, which encouraged
peoples social need to have a company and to belong.
The first two advertisements published in 1695 and based on financial
reasons were written by young men and were absolutely impersonal, without self-
description, potential partner-description and did not evoke any emotians.
In eighteenth century personal advertisements were published in English
Daily Advertiser and were quite popular. That trend of personal advertisements was
soon taken over by other European countries and advertisements were spread on
leaflets distributed on streets (Vlkov 2000 42-43).

5.3 Personal advertisements in the newspapers

As Vlkov claims, personal advertisements appear with other

advertisements of similar kind in a regular column in the newspaper and form the
so-called text colony (Vlkov 2003: 38). They do not appear in every
newspapers and every day, e.g. in The Times they appear only in Friday issues. The
text of the advertisements is compressed, which means that the advert is less
explicit in its structure than a fully articulated text (Vlkov 2003: 38). On the
basis of this compression a developed number of abbreviation is typically used.
Some newspapers provide specific details about the form, structure and even
a content of the personal advertisements, which relatively lacks the authors freedom
and opportunity to make his/her text as interesting as possible and thus to catch the
adressees attention (Vlkov 2000: 29).
Structure, content, style and linguistic means of personal advertisements
depend on the type of newspapers as well, because as Vlkov suggests, tabloids
require a lower level of literacy than broadsheet papers because they use simpler
language, i.e. common lexis, shorter sentences and not many complex
constructions (Vlkov 2003: 40).

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5.4 Strategy of the personal advertisements

As mentioned above, personal advertisements usually give certain restrictions not

only to the space but also to the content. Vlkov mentions four basic components
of personal advertisement strategy called AIDA:

Attention the reader is attracted

Interest the reader is tempted to continue reading
Desire the reader wishes to meet the advertiser
Action the reader answers
(Vlkov 2000: 33)

5.5 Explicitness and implicitness in personal advertising

A word, a sentence or a statement is explicit, if it is expressed clearly and

with no ambiguity, conversely an implicit statement is not expressed directly, there
are more ways to interpret and it usually contains a hidden meaning. Nevertheless,
as Coulthard mentions, language used to communicate cannot be totally explicit
(Vlkov 2000: 33).

5.5.1 Spoken vs. written text

Focusing on personal advertising, explicitness and implicitness of this text

has to be considered in more ways. Firstly, it is a big difference between what the
authors write and what they think or what they really intend to say and secondly, it is
important how the reader interprets the text. As for a spoken text, it is possible to use
a help of other extra-linguistic devices, e.g. body language (gestures, facial
expressions). Dealing with a written text, it is much more difficult to recognize the
writers intention, moreover, when they want to catch someones attention which is
the primary aim of personal advertising.

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5.6 Aspects influencing interpretation

There exist a few aspects which can influence understanding and

interpretation of a text, e.g. cultural background of the readers and other reasons
causing misunderstanding, based not only on the implicitness or gender differences
but also some regional variety, such as differences between British English and
American English as well as those ones between classes. If the reader is not
acquainted with those aspects the text might be misinterpreted (Vlkov 2003: 37-
38 ).

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6 GENDER AND LANGUAGE

6.1 Gender differences in general

A lot of papers, articles and books have been written about gender
differences, dealing with solving gender problems, communication improvement,
trying to go deeply into peoples souls and thinking. The fact is that a man and a
woman are two completely distinct entities and each of these entities behaves
differently in the same situations, which affects their mutual communication.
An American specialist on relationships John Gray wrote a book called Men
are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It is not an academic source with linguistic
analysis but it deals with communication between men and women and tries to
clarify all the misunderstandings caused by gender differences. He explains the main
gender problems sequent to gender differences and gives some pieces of advice how
to communicate and understand better the person of opposite sex. This book can be
a helpful source for any piece of work which deals with gender communication like
this thesis does.

6.2 Gender and communication

As Coates claims language and gender are inextricably linked (Coates 1993: 204).
John Gray deals also with gender language and emphasizes that men and women
speak different languages. That is often the reason of communication
incompatibility. Gray is persuaded that womens and mens language contains the
same or similar words, however, they are unable to understand each other. It is based
on the fact that generally in every situations feelings and emotions predominate by
women and thus the communication may be affected in that sense while men use
their rational thinking. Whence it follows that these components influence
communication and the result is misunderstanding of each other followed by
recrimination of lack of empathy.

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 In harmony with what Coates says, emotions are usually typical for women
and rational thinking is typical for men. Women put emphasis on relationships,
family, feelings, confidence, whereas men regard as the most important success,
efficiency, power and aptitude. All these areas influence womens and mens action
and their expressing of needs and ideas. These fundamental differences may reflect
also in personal advertising. To what extent it does so, is matter of this thesis.
There are some stereotypes concerning the communicative competence of
women and men. As Coates mentions, it is generally believed that women talk
more than men, that women gossip, that men swear more than women, that women
are more polite and so on (Coates 1993: 107).

6.3 Gender and conversational style

Women and men usually product different style of conversation, it relates to

verbosity, minimal responses, hedges, tag questions, questions, commands and
directives, swearing and taboo language, and compliments (Coates 1993: 114 ). All
of these components give differences to gender style and conversation.
As for verbosity, there is a widespread belief in our society that women talk
more than men (Coates 1993: 115). However, as Coates emphasizes, no research
has proved this general belief, conversely it relates to other stereotype of mens
dominance manifested also in conversation; while men are allowed to talk and lead
the conversation, women are supposed to be silent, so when they talk, they are
accused of talkativness (Coates 1003: 115).
Concerning the hedges, which are linguistic forms such as I think, Im sure,
you know, sort of and perhaps which express the speakers certainty or uncertainty
about the proposition under discussion (Coates 1993: 116), women are said to use
them more often than men. It may be a sign of possible womens markers of
hesitation based on some stereotypes again, because if women showed their
certainty, assurance or confidence during discussion or conversation, it would be
consider less feminine.
The stereotype about womens uncertainty for the reason to be feminine
(mentioned above) relates also to another conversational component, tag questions.

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Yule admits that women use them more often than men but not for the purpose to
assert an idea, ask questions or be unsure and hesitate but to invite agreement with
an idea (Yule 2006: 224).

6.4 Social consequences of gender differences in language

6.4.1 Miscommunication between men and women

Coates explains that there are certain patterns of interaction which are typical for all-
female groups and these patterns differ from those ones typical for all-male groups
and thus lead to miscommunication between genders (Coates 1993: 187). As Coates
adds, there are more components who cause miscommunication between men and
women, such as e.g. different interpretation of what the opposite sex was intended to
say. It relates mainly different interpretation of questions.
As has been already claimed, women use questions (rhetorical, indirect, tag)
more than men. However, it is not for the reason that women ask some advice or
information, they use questions like a part of conversation and for the purpose to
involve other people in the conversation too. Men conversely do not use questions a
lot, they understand questions like asking for some advice and they do not usually
have a conversation with the aim to ask. If a man hear a question, he wants to
provide some information or answer automatically, even if the question is indirect or
rhetorical. This difference causes conversational misunderstanding because women
do not expect answer or information, they actually do not ask and men are not able
to recognize the background of the question (Coates 1993: 189). This fact is also
connected with so-called back-channels, which means use of words (yeah, really?)
or sounds (hmm, oh) by listeners while someone else is speaking (Yule 2006: 225).
Yule claims that using of these back-channels is not usually typical for men and adds
that absence of back-channels tends to cause other misunderstanding because
women think that men do not pay attention to them (Yule 2006: 225).

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6.4.2 Topics of conversation

As Coates admits, some topics are considered to be serious and some to be trivial.
Serious topic are often applied to men, such as politics, cars, technology etc. and
trivial ones to women, such as caring of children, relationships etc.
While for men conversation serves like a source of information, giving
advice and presenting knowledge, for women it means belonging, sharing problems,
consolidation of relationships, gaining experience and offering support. This
different expectation is also another reason of miscommunication. When a woman
talks to another woman, she usually receives what she expects but when she talks
e.g. to her husband, she is often disappointed because he does not understand what
she was expecting, even if he thinks he helped her by giving advice (Coates 1993:
187-193)

The items mentioned above may reflect in personal advertisements as well,

especially in the style of these pieces of writing. It reflects womens desire sequent
upon their ideas about the opposite sex as well as mens wishes and needs
concerning women. This thesis will concentrate on the differences that are possible
to be found in personal advertisements.

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7 PRACTICAL PART

The practical part of the thesis will deal with the build-up of advertisements, their
structure and content. First of all, personal advertisements will be analysed
according to the levels described in the theoretical part. The next section will aim at
the structure of the advertisements and its variations. After that, the analysis of
womens advertisements, followed by the analysis of mens advertisements will be
focused on. The last section will concentrate on gender differences, from the
perspective of self- and partner-description, intended relationship, explicitness and
implicitness. The concrete examples of advertisements will be stated in each section
and numbers of those examples refer to the advertisements in supplement.

7.1 Levels of analysis of personal advertisements

As has been suggested before, the advertisements will be analysed according to the
levels. As it is not the primary aim of this thesis, the analysis will be very brief with
a couple of examples, serving for a certain idea about various aspects.

1) Graphological level The advertisements fill two whole pages of The Times.
One page is devoted to womens advertisements, this section is called Women
seeking men (WSM, abbreviated for other purposes). The second page contains
three sections, the most spacious part includes mens advertisements addressing to
women and it is called Men seeking women (MSW). Next part is significantly
shorter, containing six advertisements on average, and called Men seeking men. The
last part is called Seeking friends. The second and the third parts will be not under
the analysis.
The advertisements are organized in columns, each page includes eight
columns and each column contains approximately twenty advertisements, consisting
of 6-11 lines. All the advertisements are arranged alphabetically, the first letter of
each advertisement is bigger than the rest of the advertisement and printed in bold.

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2) Phonetic and phonological level Some elements of alliteration can be
recognized, such as e.g. stylish, stable, solvent WLTM (see 27, WSM).
Some advertisements feature a slogan or a motto as well, either as the first
thing mentioned, e.g. Just ended LTR. Educated, successful, well-traveled, etc. (see
99, MSW), Accelerate your life in 2008? Brilliant, fit male, etc. (see 167, MSW) or
in conclusion, e.g. Could this be your year? (see 219, MSW). A few advertisements
use rhyme as well, e.g. to care and share (see 188, MSW).

3) Grammatical level The advertisements do not consist of clauses, they usually

contain simple sentences, rarely complex sentences. The structure of the sentences is
also very simple, including a lot of descriptive adjectives. Some of the sentences are
non-finite, such as e.g. Unbelievably attractive, young early-60s, 57; slim, fair,
intelligent, lots of interest, looking for my soulmate (see 232, WSM).
The overwhelming majority of the personal advertisements is written in 3rd
person, e.g. The lady looks for a man who is, the man seeks a woman, who wants
etc. There are only two or three exceptions being written in 1st person, e.g. Im a 58
year old lady and would like a friend etc. (see 193, WSM).
Tenses used in the advertisements are typically of present simple (seeks,
looks for), rarely present continuous (is looking for). The conditional mood (would
like to meet) is also very popular and spread. A few passive constructions are
possible to be found in the texts as well, e.g. slim, attractive lady, sought by retired,
widowed, smart male etc. (see 245, MSW).

4) Lexical level A number of abbreviations for the purposes of space-saving used

in the advertisements is typical, e.g. GSOH (good sense of humour), WLTM (would
like to meet), LTR (long-term relationship) etc.
The vocabulary is very rich and assorted, as far as the use of adjectives
describing personality and appearance is concerned; a number of complex as well as
hyphenated words appears in the text (down-to-earth, medium-build, happy-go-
lucky, silver-ash). Vocabulary of verbs is rather restricted, virtually only three verbs
expressing the wish to find someone are preferred meet, seek, look for; very rarely
be in need, need to find, want to settle. The vocabulary contains also phrasal verbs
(look for), hence the text is not considered to be formal.

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5) Semantic level Concerning the meaning of the single words as well as their
relationship to the reality, synonymy is included in the text, e.g. sexy and attractive,
educated and intelligent etc. Some texts use comparisons as well, e.g. Mrs.
Robinson type, Julia Roberts look-alike. Actually, semantics is included in the rest of
the following sections, since the analysis in the next sections will deal with the
meaning of the words.

6) Pragmatic level The advertisements focus on one aim to attract and meet an
ideal person of opposite gender. For that reason the advertisements are built to make
other people read them and as the following result to answer. Some people
concentrate on doing their advertisement as special as possible but the majority
holds the usual structure (described in detail in the very following section) and tries
to give a clear idea about themselves and their wishes. As has been mentioned
before, the target groups are all types of men and women.

7.2 Structure of personal advertisements

The personal advertisements published in The Times were under the structural
analysis to find out if there exits a fixed structure according to which people usually
build their texts. It was discovered that the basic structure of personal advertisement
is possible to be described as the following pattern:

Self-description verb expressing a wish to meet partner-description-

intended relationship (1st group)

To go deeper into this basic structure, the pattern could be developed as the
following:
Self-description, including self-identification, appearance description,
qualities, interests (which are not considered in this thesis) verb or non-finite
expression partner-description, containing partner-identification, appearance
and qualities description intended relationship. All the advertisements are

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finished with mentioning of the area, where the text creators come from, and
followed by the phrase: call me now on (phone number). That basic pattern is
usually fulfiled by majority of the advertisements (see Figure 2), as in the following
example: Kind, loving, tall, slim, very attractive 45 year old blonde, WLTM tall,
handsome, decent, good man, 40-55, for love, happiness and to share the best of life
(see 70, WSM).
Naturally there are some variations in this structure, e.g. putting the partner-
description on the first place, followed by a verb and finished by self-description as
well as preferring the intended relationship as the first thing mentioned and others,
e.g. Are you an extremely assertive professional lady, looking to meet an extremely
submissive, professional male, late 50s? Looking for LTR (see 13, MSW). It is not
unusual that some people want to be more creative, they make their own structure so
that they could have a bigger chance to captivate.
Other structure used in the advertisements is, in essence, a variaton of the
basic model and it is also represented plentifully: Self-description verb
partner-description (2nd group), such as in the folollowing example: Vivacious,
stylish, grey-eyed, 48 year old songbird, seeks kind, tactile, intelligent gentleman,
48-55 (see 113, WSM). As it is obvious, this structure lacks a mention about the
intended relationship, which leaves a certain freedom to the creator of the text as
well as to the readers. However, some texts do not offer the relationship then, but it
is possible to deduce it on the basis of other items mentioned in the advertisements.
e.g. Witty, tall, intelligent, sincere male, nice eyes, great smile, 35, likes good
conversation, music, dancing, theatre, swimming, travel, WLTM female, 25-38, with
similar qualities and interests (see 308, MSW). As can be recognizable from the last
words (with similar qualities and interests), the man is probably looking for a
woman, who can accompany him to the theatre, who will go swimming and
traveling with him and who will make a good conversation with him. To summarize,
the man is looking for a company. For that reason it does not need to be necessary to
mention the intended relationship directly.
The last group holds a very incomplete and to certain extent a very free
structure, which is possible to be described as: Self-description (3rd group). This
structure does not include any partner-description, it also does not ask for any type
of relationship, it simply leaves the entire activity up to the readers, e.g. Kind, tall
engineer, 65, lives in Kent, but likes to hang around in Ldn, loves life, adventurous,

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creative and has sense of fun (see 100, MSW) . The messaage of this structure could
be summarized as: If you want to meet me, call and we will see.
Only a few advertisements were not possible to be put into any other group,
the advertisements are very special by themselves, they usually include a motto,
some of them provide a bit of partner-description, some of them do not say almost
anything, which can be their advantage as well as disadvantage. They can evoke
interest and draw attention by being enigmatic or they can affect as a need to hide
something. Some examples of these special advertisements are: There across a
crowded room, a glance of a sensual being. Hey there, juvenile delinquent, early-
60s, wants to cause trouble (see 152, MSW) or Interested in exploring Ldn and over
40? Get out and about for a more exciting life. To find out more call this female, 50s
(see 196, WSM).

1st group 2nd group 3rd group others

Women 64,8% 32,6% 1,6% 0,8%
Men 61,6% 31,1% 3,2% 3,2%
Altogether 63% 31,8% 2,5% 2,1%

Fig. 2 Proportion of preferred structure used in the advertisements

7.3 Personal advertisements written by women

This section will focus on womens way of the text writing. It will deal with their
self-description including self-identification, description of appearance, qualities
and personality, ideal partner-description based on identification and description of
appearance and qualities as well, and the intended relationship.

7.3.1 Self-description of women

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Self-description is a very important point when trying to build an advertisement,
moreover it is also more important than the partner-description, because people
primarily present themselves via advertisements and on the basis of this presentation
every other possible contact or story reflects.

7.3.1.1 Self-identification of women

Women use different labels when talking about themselves. The most frequent
indications used by women for their self-identification and expressing clearly their
gender are: lady, female, and woman, very rarely: girl. The following
definitions of each of those terms explain the slight differences between them. The
definition for lady was taken from The Longman Dictionary (2001) and the other
definitions were taken from Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2002).

Lady as a designation for a woman, the female head of a household, a woman of

superior position in society, equivalent of gentleman, a woman who is polite and
behaves very well (2001: 899)
Female a woman or girl as distinguished from a man or boy (2002: 940)
Woman an adult female person as opposite to a man or a girl or both (2002:
3662)
Girl a female child, a young or relatively young woman (often offensive by some
women) (2002: 1100)

As it is obvious, female and woman are almost identical terms, indicating adult as
well as girl. For that reason most women prefer these labels for their self-
identification (see Figure 3). However, the most frequently used label is lady,
which is quite different from those two mentioned above, since it provides a kind of
certain nobleness. As it is an opposite of gentleman, some sorts of majesty and
great manners are expected of the owners of the title lady. On one hand it is quite a
grateful noun for purposes of the use in personal advertisements, because it does not
have to be necessary to use other adjectives describing qualities of that lady, such as
well-mannered, ladylike, feminine, polite, gentle and so on, since these qualities are

- 33 -
presupposed. On the other hand it can be quite a mysterious title, because everyone
may create their own vision of who the real lady is, how she looks like, what
qualities she abounds. That can attract those men who like mysterious women or
rather ladies, so to use the word lady for self-identification can be considered as a
good strategy to attract men via personal advertisements. There was not proved any
association between using lady and the age of the women; it has been used by all
the age groups.

used labels proportion

lady 26%
female 22%
woman 12%
girl 1,2%
brunette/blonde 13%
marital status (widow) 3,7%
profession 4%
beauty 1,6%
others 13,5%
no label 7%

Fig. 3 Labels used by women for their self-identification

As can be recognized from Figure 3, there are also other labels used for
womens self-identification. A few women mention the colour of their hair and use it
instead of lady, female or others. As two examples, the following advertisements
are mentioned:

142, WSM: Attractive, petite, brown-eyed blonde, 53

134, WSM: Attractive, blue-eyed brunette, young 43

Some women, although very rarely, use their marital status, race or their
profession for the self-identification, e.g.:

WSM: Danish ex-glamour model, mid-40s

WSM: Accountant, 27, attractive and ambitious
WSM: Alluring Gypsy, club class traveller, fun, fit, slim

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WSM: Attractive, active, lonely widow, 60s

These groups are not much numerous, the women probably do not have the need or
they do not consider important to provide information about their profession or
success in profession.
Next group is called others, because there is no possibility to put the
advertisements into a concrete group or the groups. The advertisements are special
and their creators inventive, as far as the self-identification is concerned, as in the
following examples:

178, WSM: Eye-catching English Lily-Rose, long hair

80, WSM: Pocket Venus, 52, slim but curvy
105, WSM: Stunning, slim, intelligent, Indian-NewYorker
113, WSM: Vivacious, stylish, grey-eyed, 48 year old songbird, seeks...
44, WSM: Creative, attractive Francophile, 50s

Some advertisements use even more labels to identify their authors, e.g.:

234, WSM: Very attractive female, size 10, waist length blonde hair, English Rose
with Scandinavian heritage, early 40s, looking for

The last group that was explored is called no label, which means that
women do not use any noun for their self-identification, they usually use either
adjectives describing their appearance and qualities or they base their self-
description on the similarity with the sought man, e.g.:

101, WSM: Slim 40 year-old, wishing to meet a decent chap. Im attractive, part
Swedish, with a love of beauty
124, WSM: Are you athletic-looking, sporty, educated, adventurous, have a zest for
life and are truly special? So am I! Are you

7.3.1.2 Description of appearance

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Focusing on the description of appearance, a relatively wide range of vocabulary is
used, it is not restricted only to using adjectives, it often uses nouns of comparisons.
Women concentrate most on four items of their appearance: overall impression,
figure, hair and eyes (see Figure 4). The average number of adjectives or nouns
describing appearance ranges from two to three.

overall not
figure hair eyes special
impression described

60% 44% 31% 15% 2,8% 8%

Fig. 4 Description of womens appearance

As it is obvious from Figure 4, absolute majority of the women puts

emphasis on the overall impression rather than on describing single components of
their appearance. The most frequently used words are: attractive (with
overwhelming majority), beautiful, pretty, sexy, fit, good-looking, as in the
following examples:

10, WSM: Articulate, attractive, slim, stylish lady, early 50s

53, WSM: Extremely good-looking, cultured, refined, sophisticated, well-educated
lady,
82, WSM: Pretty blonde writer, cool, smart and sexy, 50s

As for the adjective pretty, a few women use the fixed phrase pretty woman as
the identification with the heroine of the homonymous film, e.g. Pretty woman
seeks Richard Gere. (see 85, WSM).
A lot of adjectives are pre-modified, which endows greater importance to
them, e.g. unbelievably attractive, extremely good-looking, very attractive etc.

A particular emphasis is put on figure, which is most often described with

the words: slim, tall, leggy, great. There was no advertisement mentioning

- 36 -
short figure, which serves as an assumption that tall figure is considered to be
more sexy and attractive.
Quite a lot of women mention the colour of their hair and eyes and even the
adjectives blonde and blue-eyed occur in Top 10 used adjectives (see Figure 5).
Some of the advertisements are very special as for describing their authors
appearance. The following examples have one thing in common: their authors
compare their look to a celebrity, who is usually considered to be a symbol of
beauty:

68, WSM: Julia Roberts look-alike, 40, professional

155, WSM: Beauty and brains, prettier than Penelope Cruz, global insurance
lawyer, 40, long dark hair, brown eyes
227, WSM: Sweet, petite and curvy like Kylie, 42, youthful
201, WSM: Lord Spencers ex wife (Victoria) look-alike, beautiful,

Such advertisements have really a particular possibility to attract or give evidence

about their authors resourcefulness at least.
Generally considered, women put great emphasis on describing their own
appearance, apparently because of the feeling that their appearance is very important
for men; only 8 per cent of the women do not mention their appearance, while the
others use more than just one adjective or noun. Some of the adjectives are popular
and are used by the majority of women (Figure 5).

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7.3.1.3 Description of qualities and personality

Mentioning peoples qualities (those positive, of course) is a necessary part when

dealing with drawing someones attention. Similarly like for the description of
appearance, adjectives are used typically for describing qualities since it is the
easiest way how to express clearly and briefly human character. The women use a
very manifold range of vocabulary to describe themselves in the best way, the
average number of adjectives used per one advertisement is three.
More than 80 adjectives have been used for describing womens qualities
and personality. However, it is possible to create several groups expressing the same
element of character: intellect, sense of humour, feminity, style, kindness, success
and others. Each of these groups is being characterized by other specifying
adjectives (Figure 7).

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 adjectives mentioned to
each group (according
group proportion
to the most frequently
used ones)

intelligent, (well)-
intellect 23%
educated
sophisitcated, stylish,
style elegant, classy, well 17%
mannered, trendy, sassy
GSOH, funny, witty, fun-
sense of humour 15%
loving
feminine, caring,
feminity 14%
sensitive, gentle
kindness warm, kind 7%
success successful, solvent 2%
professional 11%
others non-mentioned 11%
special 1%

Fig. 7 Description of womens qualities

As far as intellect is concerned, this group includes adjectives intelligent

and (well-) educated. These words are mentioned by majority of the women,
which just goes to show that intelligence is still more important than success, but
probably on the same level as appearance. Those two adjectives (intelligent, well-
educated) usually substitute each other in the advertisements, in other words, a
woman who describes herself as intelligent does not use the word educated then and
vice versa:

137, WSM: Attractive, intelligent, genuine, caring female, 60

225, WSM: Stylish country woman, educated, professional, blonde

This fact is quite remarkable because those two words are not synonymous.
Someone who is educated does not have to abound in intelligence and conversely
someone intelligent does not need to reach certain education to prove as intelligent.

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 Among the style cathegory adjectives such as stylish, elegant, classy,
sassy, sophisticated (very frequently used), trendy, well-mannered are
possible to be included. All of them stress overall manners, good behaviour as well
as possible social status, impart a feeling of certain nobleness and together with
other adjectives such as attractive and noun lady may create an irresistible
combination, which can belong among other successful aspects of drawing the
opposite genders attention:

106, WSM: Stunning, sophisticated, sexy Asian lady

77, WSM: Loyal, stylish, attractive lady
58, WSM: Genuine, classy, stylish, feminine lady
206, WSM: Pretty woman, graduate, witty, well mannered, green eyed
174, WSM: Elegant, attractive, professional, stylish lady

The group called sense of humour is the third most numerous, as far as qualities
that the women attribute to themselves is concerned. The expression sense of
humour includes (according to the advertisements) adjectives or nouns as:
cheerful, GSOH (good sense of humour), funny, witty, fun-loving:

240, WSM: Warm, witty, petite brunette

167, WSM: Curvaceous, fun-loving, bubbly, attractive female
37, WSM: Bubbly, curvy, blue-eyed blonde, young 45, GSOH

As for feminity, this quality is usually expressed by adjective feminine, which

means having qualities that are considered to be typical of women, especially by
being gentle, delicate and pretty (Longman Dictionary). This feature carries the
similar meaning as e.g. lady or attractive. To explain, all these words include
more qualities inside and do not have to be modified by other adjectives expressing
feminity. The feature feminity can include also gentle, as mentioned above, as
well as caring and sensitive, which are supposed to be rather females qualities:

54, WSM: Feminine, pretty, petite, size 10, youtful lady

222, WSM: Stunning, blonde woman, 40s, slender, feminine, creative
156, WSM: Caring, affectionate female, country lover...

- 40 -
 As far as other groups is concerned, kindness is usually expressed by
adjectives such as kind, warm, nice and success is really not important for the
women when describing themselves, only a few of them mention e.g. successful or
solvent.
The group called others includes three subgroups: advertisements
containing professional, very special advertisements and the last but not least:
advertisements which do not contain any qualities or personality description.

A lot of women describe themselves as professional, which means having

or showing the skill of a professional person, competent; worthy of a professional
or a person highly skilled or competent in some activity of field (Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary). This adjective or noun, if used, is very popular among the
creators of the advertisements, because it seems rather general and grateful,
including positive qualities:

209, WSM: Professional woman, 27, brunette, looking for

131, WSM: Attractive, blonde, slim lady, 54, professional, hobbies

Only a few advertisements are quite special as for describing the qualities or
personality, the women deal with a special way of describing themselves:

5, WSM: An airhead I am not, but great fun with a brain, this woman loves to travel
and still loves a good rock concert, so

As it is obvious, the author tries to say that she is an intelligent, witty woman but
she tells about it in a completely different way than the other advertisements, which
makes it special. Sometimes the real content of the text (the advertisement in this
case) is not as important as the way the creator chooses. Two texts with the
absolutely same content can have different impact on the readers if they diverse in
the way of writing or choice of vocabulary and it depends on the readers and their
personalities then, which text they like more.
As has been mentioned before, some advertisements do not include the
creators qualities description at all; they concentrate on other elements, such as
appearance, interests or describing the sought partner:

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29, WSM: Belgian girl, 21 looking for English gentleman
36, WSM: Brunette female, 37, with long hair, blue eyes, slim, looking for
242, WSM: Woman, 60s, who still enjoys the occasional cigarette, whiskey and
cuddle, WLTM man

The rest of adjectives used by women for description of their qualities and
personalities are very specific and mentioned only by an insignificant minority of
the women, e.g. passionate, positive, independent, tactile, sincere, loyal,
assertive, romantic, outgoing, lonely, artistic, creative, articulate,
friendly, sporty, genuine (all of these adjectives were used at least by three
women).

6.3.1.4 Summary of self-description

After a thorough analysis of womens self-description, some pieces of information

have been explored. Firstly, most women identify themselves as lady, which carries
a meaning of well-behaved female. Secondly, a large number of the women assign
importance to their appearance, which actually is not so astonishing, but they
usually describe their appearance to the certain details, such as the colour of their
eyes or hair, even their exact height (not mentioned in the analysis). Only 8 per cent
of the women do not mention their appearance at all. The majority of women uses
words attractive (40 per cent), slim (28 per cent) and blonde (13 per cent).
To compare appearance with the qualities and personality, 11per cent of the
women do not mention them at all. It follows that to describe the appearance is a bit
more important than to mention the personality. Those women who mention their
qualities, put emphasis on intellect (23 per cent), style (17 per cent), sense of
humour (15 per cent) and feminity (14 per cent). The most popular and most
frequently used adjectives are entered in Figure 8.

- 42 -
7.3.2 Partner-description

7.3.2.1 Partner-identification

From the perspective of vocabulary choice for partner-identification, the women are
very resourceful. Nevertheless, only three labels are used by majority of the women:
man (the most frequently used one), gentleman, and male. A few other labels
indicating male gender are: guy, bloke and chap, although these ones are used
very rarely (see Figure 9). The possible differences between all of those labels will
be described by mens self-identification.
Concerning other labels, the women use e.g. soulmate, partner, mate;
these labels are similar to each other and can indicate someone who understands the
persons of opposite gender, who can respect their personality and will be with them
in good and bad. As for these nouns, they can hide the intended relationship as well;
if someone is looking for a partner, they do not probably desire a friendship.

- 43 -
 labels proportion
man 29%
gentleman 26%
male 25%
no label 5%
soulmate, partner, mate 4%
others (widower, Englishman,
companion, boyfriend, businessman, 4%
playmate)

guy, chap, bloke 2%

special (Richard Gere, Mr.Right, beau,

fireman, captains, husband, bon viveaur, 3%
baby boomer)

Fig. 9 Labels used for partner-identification

There are a few quite special advertisements as far as the partner-

identification is concerned, e.g. the following advertisement mentioned before in
different context:

85, WSM: Pretty woman seeks Richard Gere. Are you attractive, generous, in
search of a professional girlfriend?...

The expression Richard Gere is a typical example of implicitness. The woman

does probably look for neither the real Richard Gere nor a man who behaves like
him or is similar to him but she wants a man who will have the qualities of the non-
existing person externalized by Richard Gere in the popular film. Everyone who
reads that advertisement and knows the film can recognize what the woman is
expecting: attractive appearance, charisma, chivalry, good manners and behaviour,
politeness, respect, and last but not least: money, success and wealth. However, the
creator of this advertisements mentions the adjectives attractive and generous as
well, which is not necessary, since it is included in Richard Gere.

Among other interesting advertisements belong:

- 44 -
63, WSM: Great Package: witty, stylish blonde/grey hair, 58, 57, blue eyes, long
legs, curvy seeks sybaritic, decent, tall beau, whos

The indication beau is rather archaic and has more meanings, e.g. lover, boyfriend
and swain.

192, WSM: Husband wanted, for attractive, solvent, feisty, bossy lady

Unlike the advertisement with Richard Gere, this advertisement is clearly explicit;
the woman is looking for a man for the purpose of marriage.

154, WSM: Are there any 55+ captains out there seeking mate
208, WSM: Professional lady, 41, 57, blonde hair, blue eyes, looking for
Mr.Right
206, WSM: Pretty woman, graduate, witty, well mannered, green eyed, slim, leggy,
shapely, 55, seeks older bon viveur

The word bon viveur comes from the French origin and labels a man of the world,
a globe-trotter, simply a man, who knows what the life is about and is able to enjoy
it.

7.3.2.2 Partners appearance

Concerning the description of partners appearance, this item is really not important
for the women when looking for an ideal partner, moreover, even 59 per cent of the
women do not mention partners appearance at all. Those ones, who include
partners appearance in their advertisements, usually use only one or maximum two
general words, such as tall, attractive, slim, good-looking or handsome:

139, WSM: Attractive, intelligent, Russian female, young-40s, pianist, WLTM white,
good-looking, tall, solvent male,

146, WSM: Attractive, sparkly, stylish brunette, slim and shapely, 50s, looks
younger, WLTM attractive, youtful, romantic male,

- 45 -
7.3.2.3 Description of partners qualities and personality

In one of the previous chapters there were mentioned areas which women emphasize
when describing their qualities and personality, such as intellect, sense of humour
etc. Almost all of those areas that women attribute to themselves are required from
the partners as well, however, in a different order (Figure 10).

adjectives mentioned to
each group (according
group proportion
to the most frequently
used ones)

not mentioned - 18%

GSOH, funny, witty, fun-

sense of humour 13%
loving

professional - 13%

intelligent, (well)-
intellect 13%
educated, wise
success successful, solvent 13%
kindness warm, kind, lovely 11%
charming, sophisticated,
charisma special, interesting, 9%
charismatic,
similarity - 9%
special - 1%

Fig. 10 Partners qualities

Four groups reach approximately the same proportion of importance:

intellect, sense of humour, successand the universal word professional. For
that reason it does not have to be unusual that at least one adjective from at least one
of these groups is mentioned in almost each advertisement that includes description

- 46 -
of partners qualities, possible almost all of these groups may be represented in one
advertisement:

117, WSM: A breath of fresh air. Intelligent, gorgeous, woman, early-30s, seeks
gentleman, mid 30s-50s, honest, kind and confident, with GSOH
179, WSM: Fabulous and stunning, young, adventurous black lady, 26, seeks fun
and adventure with sincere, genuine, professional guy
194, WSM: Indian lady, 30, likes pink champagne, seeks wealthy and generous
guy.
91, WSM: Sassy, blonde, blue-eyed writer and music lover, 50s, witty and
intelligent, still seeking man of wit, wisdom and warmth, 50-60s,

The last mentioned advertisement (91, WSM) gives clear evidence that women
usually look for the similar men to them (cf. witty and intelligent and man of wit,
wisdom). This fact is connected with the item called similarity, which appears in
Figure 10 as well. This similarity deals with the advertisements, in which the
women do not describe concrete qualities or interests of their ideal partners but write
something like: with similar qualities, similar to me etc.:

169, WSM: Dark skinned beauty, 40, with favourable attributes and affectionate
disposition, love of dogs, motorbikes and music, seeks similar, tall guy
217, WSM: Ski Bunny, 55, n/s, petite, curvaceous brunette, enjoys travel, skiing,
restaurants, theatre and the finer things in life, WLTM tall n/s male, 50-60,
with similar interests

Some women describe the ideal partners qualities or rather abilities in a

different way:

33, WSM: Blonde, petite, fit ex-New Yorker, 40s, new to Ldn, looking for a man who
likes to banter, knows who he is (not least on weekends), is cognitally kind,
and can step up to the plate.

204, WSM: Optimistic, professional lady, 56, early 60s, divorced, WLTM caring

- 47 -
 man to share special smiles, life and advenurous. PS. Must have a touch of
daftness
65, WSM: Help! Smiley, vivacious, classy and independent; but in need of
occasional architectural and financial advice and possibly of some bridge
tutoring! Attractive, young 60s lady

The last mentioned advertisement (65, WSM) is more special than the others, it does
not say almost anything clear about the sought man, but something can be
interpreted from the text, i.e. the woman may look for someone who will take care
of her, will help her. The expression financial advice seems rather ambiguous,
firstly it means to be given the advice how to solve possible financial problems, or
(more probably) to be provided some financial resources. For that reason, that
expression may contain a hidden meaning and could be replaced by I am looking
for a wealthy, financially secured and generous man.
Those advertisements which do not mention description of qualities by using
exact adjectives include sometimes this description e.g. in the partner-identification
(gentleman, soulmate etc.)

7.3.2.4 Summary of partner-description

As has been already mentioned, the most frequently used words for partner-
identification are man, gentleman and male. Other indications are very specific and
give evidence about the womens resourcefulness (bon viveaur, beau, baby
boomer etc.).
The women do not put emphasis on partner-appearance at all, more than half
of them do not mention a word about it, and the rest of them use adjectives such as
attractive, tall and slim.
Concerning partners qualities and personality, various adjectives and nouns
have been used, nevertheless, most women prefer words professional, kind,
intelligent and require the same qualities from their ideal partners as they have (see
Figure 11 about the most frequently used adjectives for describing partners qualities
and personality).

- 48 -
7.3.3 Intended relationship

The way of describing the intended relationship that the women look for and offer,
can decide if the man, who reads the advertisement, will answer or not. Some
advertisements are open in this way, it means they do not specify the relationship
(mentioned in section 6.2). Those women, who have clear idea about the future
relationship, express it usually by words: LTR (long-term relationship), relationship,
to share, for fun and, friendship and more, etc. (see Figure 12).

type of relationship proportion

LTR 14%
relationship 8%
to share 8%
for fun and 5%
friendship and more 4%
others 31%
not mentioned 31%

Fig. 12 Intended relationship

As it is recognizable from Figure 12, the women usually look for
relationship, either LTR, or any type of relationship, which is then modified by e.g
caring, loving, fabulous, genuine, wonderful etc.:

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59, WSM: Good-looking, petite woman, 60s, warm, friendly, GSOH, fit, interested
in books, art, current affairs, seeks similar man, 55-65 for LTR.
188, WSM: Gorgeous, glamorous, leggy female, 50, very bright, with many
interests, WLTM successful, intelligent man, 46-53, for fabulous
relationship.
133, WSM: Attractive, active, lonely widow, 60s, who misses a loving, caring
relationship, seeks lonely widower to cherish.

Next group is called to share. This expression is supplemented with

other words, e.g. good times with, life with, a love life with all possibilities, happy
times etc.:

74, WSM: Long-haired, oriented female, 31, slender, attractive, friendly, warm-
hearted, well-educated and travelled, WLTM true gentleman to share life
with.
161, WSM: Classical ballet dancer, 50s, slim, attractive, good figure, kind,
passionate brunette, 52, loves music travel, sports, seeks man, 52-65, to
share love, laughter and life.

The women, who use this expression (to share), usually provide more possibilities
about the way of the future relationship, e.g. the phrase to share life is explicit on
one hand, but on the other hand it does not say anything about the length of the
sharing life (unlike te expression LTR).
The similar effect is caused also by the group for fun and which provides
even more freedom. The women who want to have fun use various phrases, e.g. for
fun and romance, for fun evenings, travel, spoiling and pampering, for fun times etc.
Dealing with the group friendship and more, some women use it, probably
to demostrate that they do not intend launching into a serious relationship without
getting to know the man better:

16, WSM: Attractive, intelligent, friendly female, 49, who enjoy arts, sports, travel,
WLTM gentle male, with GSOH in 50s, for friendship and more.
22, WSM: Attractive, slim, business woman, 40s, loves dancing, comedy and

- 50 -
 intelligent conversation, WLTM down-to-earth, reliable, honest chap, for
friendship and possible LTR.

Other women usually describe the intended relationship on the basis of their
interests (for city breaks, country pubs and cultural outgoings) or leave a certain
freedom for interpretation (for everything, for medium-term relationship, for
passion and conversation, for fun nights out and cosy nights in).

7.3.4 Summary of womens advertisements

To summarize information about womens advertisements, it is possible to claim

that women can be really inventive and resourceful as far as their self-description,
partner-description and creating advertisements is concerned. Nevertheless, the
overwhelming majority of the women does not deviate from the average, which
includes the basic structure of the advertisements, emphasis on appearance
(summarized in a more detail before) and desire for long-term relationship. As for
unusualness of some advertisements, two of them were chosen, since they are
unique and special on the whole although they demonstrate clearly who is looking
for whom and why:

47, WSM: Dear Santa. Pretty 44 year old, long fair hair, blue eyes, please can you
find me a handsome, creative man, 40-55, to put into my stocking for
Christmas and LTR.
186, WSM: German shepherd dog urgently seeks professional male, with GSOH, to
be a friend/soulmate for her feminine, tall, slim, fair, young 60s mistress.

7.3.4.1 The typical womens advertisement

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On the basis of all the pieces of information gathered within the analysis (average
number of adjectives, the most frequently used indications for self- and partner-
identification as well as self- and partner-description and intended relationship), it is
possible to create the typical womens advertisement, which would probably have
the least chance to attract attention and captivate:

Attractive, slim, blonde lady, 50s, intelligent, professional, feminine, seeks

professional, kind, intelligent man, for LTR.

7.4 Personal advertisements written by men

The analysis of this part will be based on the same principle as the previous part
dealing with personal advertisements written by women; it means it will include
self-description of the men as well as their potential partners and desired
relationship.

7.4.1 Self-description of men

7.4.1.1 Self-identification of men

A lot of men use gender indications such as male (the most frequently used one),
man, gentleman and guy. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary explains each of
the previous nouns:

Male a man or boy as distinguished from a woman or a girl (2002: 1680)

Man a human being, a person, an adult male person, as opposite to a woman or
boy or both (2002: 1685)

- 52 -
Gentleman a man who demonstrates his gentle birth by appropriate behaviour or
moral qualities, e.g. chivalrous conduct, consideration of others, sense of humour
etc. (2002: 1086)
Guy a man, a fellow; a person of grotesque appearance, esp. in dress (2002:
1174)

According to those definitions it is recognizable that male, man and guy are, in
essence, identical terms (except the second definition of guy, which is probably
not meant in the advertisements). The term gentleman (as opposite of lady)
differs from the others with hidden chivalry, nobleness and good manners,
nevertheless, it is not used frequently (Figure 13).

used labels proportion

male 37,6%
man 14%
gentleman 9%
guy 9%
profession 15%
marital status (widower) 2%
others 5,6%
no label 8%

Fig. 13 Self-identification of men

As it is obvious from Figure 13, the second most numerous place after male
is occupied by profession. It means that the men point out their work success:

29, MSW: Attractive, 62, slim businessman, 60s looks 50s

100, MSW: Kind, tall engineer, 65, lives in Kent
110, MSW: Manchester company director, 42, 6, successful

Other professions mentioned in the advertisements are: marketing consultant,

architect, lawyer, teacher, university lecturer, school master, writer,
author, banker, entrepreneur, pianist and rugby player.

- 53 -
 All of the professions mentioned above and in the advertisements are
connected with wealth, success, prestige and good social status or popularity (rugby
player). There is no advertisement whose creator writes that he is e.g. bricklayer,
carpenter, dustman, cleaner etc. An idea comes to the mind that those men who do
not mention their profession, are those ones who work manually, do not earn much
money and their profession is not connected with prestige (because they would
mention it if so).
Among the men who do not identify themselves with a gender label or
profession, a group which uses only adjectives of appearance or qualities appears, as
well as the men who use some special labels for their self-identification:

6, MSW: Adventurous, tall, athletic, articulate stud muffin, 30s

90, MSW: Green-eyed scorpio, 50s, seeks lady
123, MSW: Pamperer, 50, enjoys theatre, travel

7.4.1.2 Description of appearance

Concerning their appearance, the men do not use a wide range of vocabulary to
describe it, they probably do not attach importance to their look, or they do not want
to think up as interesting adjectives as possible. They usually use only one adjective
to describe their appearance and put emphasis on their overall impression rather than
mentioning the individual items. If they do so, they mention their figure and very
rarely eyes and hair (Figure 14).

overall not
figure hair eyes special
impression described

46% 35% 5% 11% 4% 22%

Fig. 14 Description of mens appearance

Overall impression include adjectives such as attractive, handsome, good-

looking, fit, sexy and pleasant (appearance):

- 54 -
198, MSW: Attractive, professional gentleman, fit, young-looking 50s
251, MSW: Male, 42, attractive, athletic, 510, enjoys
235, MSW: Handsome architect, 40s, seeks

As for their figure, the men use the general adjective: tall and slim. These
two adjectives usually appear together if mentioned:

299, MSW: Tall, slim, happy, successful, divorced gentleman, mid 50s, seeks
39, MSW: Author, 44, tall, slim, confident, eloquent

As has been mentioned before, only a few men describe their eyes but they
do not usually mention the colour or length of their hair, or they do so very rarely.
Two men are inventive as for describing their appearance and similarly like
the women in some cases they compare their look to a celebrity:

10, MSW: Al Pacino look-alike, early-60s, with a zest for life

303, MSW: Very sophisticated man, 60, Michael Douglas look-alike, loving

Those comparisons with a good-looking celebrity are quite grateful, because the
readers can gain an immediate idea about the writers look without being described
with various adjectives that are very general and cannot express anything exact.
Some of the comparisons can be very misleading, of course, the readers have to
count in the hyperbole, but it still fulfils the major aim to attract and initiates the
possible desire to meet.
One of the advertisements is special with a really different way:

152, MSW: Male, 60s, not too bright, dim, ugly, allegedly boring and broke,

The author of this advertisement selected a different way how to attract women, he
does not emphasise his possible attractiveness, on the contrary, he seems to stay
mysterious as for his appearance, which he hid in the word ugly. He probably
wants to awaken an interest to be found out if he is really ugly or not and this
discovery can be done only by answering the advertisement and meeting the person.

- 55 -
 Generally considered, the men do not seem much inventive as far as
describing their appearance is concerned. It cannot be said univocally that they do
not mention it at all, but if they do so, they usually use one or two adjectives and put
emphasis on something else than their appearance. The most frequent adjectives
appear in Figure 15.

7.4.1.3 Description of qualities and personality

Dealing with qualities and personality, the men use surprisingly a wide range of
vocabulary, more than 90 various adjectives have been used for the description.
However, only four groups characterizing the same quality element were possible to
create: success, sense of humour, intellect, kindness (see Figure 16).
As it is marked in Figure 16, more than one fifth of the men attach
importance to their success and mention it in their advertisements. This item is
typically expressed with adjectives successful, solvent and generous:

290, MSW: Successful fit, professional male, early 50s

280, MSW: Solvent, once very good-looking man, 66

- 56 -
74, MSW: Generous, professional gent, 50s

The men point out their success also with other attributions such as financially
independent, well-travelled, with mentioning their profession (discussed in
section 7.3.1.1) as well as certain things they own, e.g. with own national
company, with beautiful house, whence it follows that there is more than one fifth
of the men emphasizing their success. In some cases, the men put all these items
together in one advertisement, which stresses the success more:

182, MSW: Assertive, attractive, successful. Ldn businessman, 45

142, MSW: Successful international banker, 44
9, MSW: Age 69, physically 59, marketing consultant; travel the world from UK to
Australasia. I like

adjectives mentioned to
each group (according
group proportion
to the most frequently
used ones)

successful, solvent,
success 21%
generous

GSOH, witty, fun-loving,

sense of humour 15%
humorous

intellect intelligent, successful 14%

kindness warm, kind 7%

professional 16%
caring 7%
others romantic 4%
non-mentioned 14%
special 2%

Fig. 16 Mens qualities used by self-description

Other qualities that the men attribute to themselves are those of sense of
humour, which is not so astonishing because men usually like humour and like

- 57 -
telling jokes etc. For describing their sense of humour, the men use adjectives such
as witty, fun-loving, humorous as well as the abbreviation GSOH.
The third group that was possible to be created, is represented by intellect,
which (to certain extent) is other item connected with success. Intellect is usually
described with adjectives intelligent and educated, very rarely intellectual and
genial:

97, MSW: Intellectual man, 57, slim

226, MSW: Gentleman, 60s, professional, tall, well-educated, easy-going

The fact that intellect is not put on the first places of qualities that man use for their
self-description is quite remarkable, because men usually tend to pride on their
education and intellect. In this case the men probably hide these factors into the
success, they may think that a mention about their prestigious profession presuppose
their achieved education as well as intellect.
The last group is called kindness and includes adjectives kind and warm,
which are used quite rarely by the men.
The group called others is created by other subgroups. Three of these
subgroups include adjectives professional, caring and romantic, used quite
often by the men:

258, MSW: Personable, professional male, 70s, 58, slim

202, MSW: Caring, professional man, 78
272, MS2: Romantic builder, 45, GSOH, fit

Concerning the word romantic, the men probably use it for a different reason than
the expressions connected with success. While they intend to pride on themselves
via stressing their success, the word romantic may be used for attracting womens
attention rather than an attempt to pride on their romantic character, since the men
probably assume that this quality is desired by a womens potential partner.
A few men can be inventive as well; they use special adjectives or the whole
description:
112, MSW: Multi-tasking single dad
166, MSW: Abandoned! By lady from Hillsborough/N Ireland and stood up in

- 58 -
 Dublin! Now urgently needs

The word multi-tasking usually refers to the ability of computer to do more things
in the same time. The author of this advertisement takes over this ability and
probably intends to say that he is able to take care of everything, is reliable and
active. The second example does not mention the qualities of its author, it points out
that he is alone now, probably sad and hurt and needs a woman who will make him
happy.

7.4.1.4 Summary of self-description

The analysis of mens self-description has brought the following information: most
men identify themselves as male and describe their qualities rather than their
appearance, 22 per cent of the men even do not mention their appearance at all. As
for the qualities, most men stress their success, which is usually described with
various adjectives (21 per cent) or profession (15 per cent) or both. Other qualities
mentioned predominantly in the advertisements are connected with sense of humour
(15 per cent), intellect (14 per cent) and the popular adjective professional (16 per
cent). The most frequently used adjectives are represented in Figure 17.

- 59 -
7.4.2 Partner-description

7.4.2.1 Partner-identification

The men do not seem much inventive in thinking about the label for their ideal
partner; they rely on traditional labels indicating gender such as lady, female,
woman, rarely girl (see Figure 18). A few men use labels expressing their desire
for partnership, e.g. soulmate or partner and it is not unusual that those men do
not mention the relationship then, since it is hidden in the indications.

labels proportion
lady 39%
female 27%
woman 17%
no label 6%
soulmate, partner, mate 6%
girl 4%
special (e.g.superstar, princess, charmer) 0,8%

Fig. 18 Labels used for partner-identification

Only a very few advertisements may be considered to be quite special and
resourceful, because they do not use the traditional indications:

131, MSW: Single, divorced, country-loving, city hearted, handsome, slim male, 48,
needs to meet a pretty, petite princess
98, MSW: Generous, romantic, walking, diving, riding, skiing, cooking
conversationalist, 42, 510, fit, seeking superstar, for

Both of the indications are very positive and demonstrate that the sought woman
must be very special, unique and extraordinary.
The following advertisement uses the label based on the title of the well-
known series:

57, MSW: Desperate Housewife. Early 50s, attractive, fashionable, slim girly girl,
heels, make-up? Kind, caring considerate man, 57, would like to hear from
you.

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The expression desperate housewife indicates a woman, who lives in luxury, is
elegant and has time to take care of her appearance, because she has probably a
highly successful husband, who does not have much time for his wife. The creator
of this advertisement adds some more prerequisites for his partner, like attractive,
fashionable, wearing heels etc.
One more advertisement is quite remarkable as well, although its author does
not use any special label for his possible partner, but he uses more labels:

249, MSW: Lovely man, kind, generous and tactile nature, eclectic tastes and
interests, 40 something, tall, good-looking and successful, seeks stylish
woman, soulmate, lover and best friend.

As it is obvious, the creator does not mention the intended relationship as well as the
qualities that his future love should have. These items are possible to be recognized
in the labels that the man used for the partner-identification. Focusing on lover and
best friend, it would be possible to say that the man is looking for friendship and
relationship; however, it is not evident, if he intends to have a long-term relationship
or just fun and distraction. This speculation can be clarified a bit by concentrating on
soulmate, which includes qualities such as trustworthy, reliable, loving and
others as well as the relationship; soulmate is probably a woman, who the man
wants to spend his time with and needs her presence, understanding and support
(which is not included in relationship based on just occasional dates).
The men who do not use any indications for their potential partner mention
womens qualities or they call them directly, e.g.:

17, MSW: Are you single and over 40? If you are like me
18, MSW: Are you there? Mancs professional, mid 40s

7.4.2.2 Description of partners appearance

Concentrating on the description of womens appearance, it seems that it is not

important for the men; about 50 per cent of the men do not mention this item at all.
This information is quite remarkable, since it is generally recognized that men put

- 61 -
emphasis on womens look, because they desire to have a representative partner.
Those men who mention appearance of their ideal partner use the traditional and
general adjectives such as attractive, slim, beautiful, pretty and sexy:

235, MSW: Handsome architect, 40s, seeks very attractive, refined, sensual,
passionate, slim female
281, MSW: Solvent, romantic men, 70, nice face, brown hair, grey-green eyes, slim,
56, looking for happiness with a slim, positive, pretty, lady

7.4.2.3 Description of partners qualities and personality

Considering the vocabulary, the men use a wide range of adjectives to describe the
qualities and personality of their dream woman. Such adjectives are quite difficult to
be classified into more groups; since the men are very different and each of them has
his special requirements for his ideal partner (see Figure 19).
As it is clear from Figure 19, only four groups of approximately the same
adjectives are possible to be created: intellect, sense of humour, kindness and
feminity but none of this group reaches high proportion. As the adjectives included
in these groups are the most frequently used ones, they appear in the majority of the
advertisements, which specify partnersqualities, either one by one or together:

271, MSW: Renaissance man, 57, good-looking, articulate, successful, seeks

attractive, intelligent woman
200, MSW: Brilliant male, high energy, great humour, adventurous, high IQ, slim
59, late 40s but young, looking for intelligent, pretty, fun lady
46, MSW: Cheshire male, 40s, with own national company, enjoys world travel,
sport, horseriding, WLTM slim, petite, kind lady

adjectives mentioned to
each group (according
group proportion
to the most frequently
used ones)

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 not mentioned - 27%

intellect intelligent, clever, wise 11%

sense of humour GSOH, witty, fun-loving 9%

kindness warm, kind, lovely 7%

similarity - 6%
feminine, wearing high
feminity 6%
heels, gentle
special - 4%

Fig 19 Required qualities for the women according to the men

The group called similarity includes expressions like: similar to me, with
similar, if you are like me, etc. The similarity is usually based on similar
interests, qualities or opinions. If the men describe themselves thoroughly and
clearly, they do not have to mention their partners qualities, personality or interests
if they use the expression concerning similarity:
36, MSW: Attractive, slim, professional male, 40s, passionate and sensual nature,
loves socialising, WLTM slim lady, with similar outlook, for
178, MSW: Are you single and over 40? If youre like me and enjoy discovering
new places in Ldn by walking around and exploring its delights, call me.
308, MSW: Witty, tall, intelligent, sincere male, nice eyes, great smile, 35, likes
good conversation, music, dancing, theatre, swimming, travel, WLTM
female, 25-38, with similar qualities and interests.

Other adjectives used by the men are e.g.: mature, outgoing, refined, spirited,
bright, tactile, sincere, stimulating, compatible, caring, assertive, open-minded,
articulate, confident, honest, enthusiastic, independent, sporty, adventurous, creative,
strong, trustworthy etc. as in the following examples:

73, MSW: Generous and caring, warm-hearted man, late 50s, looking for a loving
and tender relationship with a sincere, intelligent, caring lady.
184, MSW: Athletic and attractive, slim, professional male, 37, 511, wicked SOH,

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 enjoys the outdoors, traveland good wine, seeks spirited, confident,
gorgeous girl. 25-35.
296, MSW: Tall, caring, loyal male, 65, smart, solvent, n/s, fit, likes walking,
National Trust, theatre, antiques, animals, WLTM mature, confident lady,
50+, for

A few men try to make a special advertisement and be inventive, they

usually do not use concrete adjectives or they do so but mention something extra as
well, since one untraditional item added to the otherwise ordinary advertisement is
enough to be able to attract the attention:

292, MSW: Successful, stylish, n/s man, 50s, with things to do and places to go,
WLTM a fashionable, petite lady, who smells nice.
141, MSW: Strong-willed, distinguished, educated male, 54, who thinks outside the
box, seeks late developing female, whose charms lie beneath the surface.

In the last mentioned advertisement (141, MSW) the creator probably intends to
emphasize that he attaches importance to the qualities and personality of the women
rather than to their appearance. For that reason he does not have to mention the
potential partners appearance since it is not important to him.

7.4.2.4 Summary of partner-description

As for the partner-identification, the men remain traditional and majority of them
labels the partners as lady, female or woman.
The appearance of the women is not much emphasized in the mens
advertisements, the men use predominantly ordinary adjectives such as attractive,
slim and tall.
Focusing on the description of womens qualities and personality, the usual
categories such as intellect, sense of humour, kindness and feminity are possible to
be mentioned. In other cases, the men use extensive vocabulary of adjectives. The
list of the most frequently used adjectives has been organized into an outline
presented in Figure 20.

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7.4.3 Intended relationship

Analogously to the women, majority of the men mentions the type of relationship
which they wish to make with their ideal partner as well. Not many of them desire a
LTR, they usually want to have a different type of relationship based e.g. on fun,
sharing good times or similar interests (see Figure 21). The men probably want to
keep certain freedom and not to promise a lifelong relationship, marriage etc.,
perhaps they are not sure what they are really looking for, so maybe for that reason
they often use the expression for fun. Those men, who seem to be certain about the
intended relationship, usually do not modify it by other adjectives, unlike the
women:

29, MSW: Attractive, 62, slim businessman, 60s looks 50s, enjoys wide range of
interests, WLTM attractive, tall, slender lady, up to 54, who is fun to be
with, for LTR.
31, MSW: Attractive, genuine lawyer, 40, 510, blue eyes, medium build, enjoys

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 socialising, keeping fit, eating out, travel, seeks attractive, outgoing female,
24-40, for relationship.

type of relationship proportion

LTR 12%
for fun and 9%
to share (good times, fun etc.) 8%
relationship 4%
friendship and more 2%
others 31%
not mentioned 34%

Fig. 21 Intended relationship

The expression to share is followed by other words, specifying, which way

the relationship is going to proceed:

208, MSW: Come ski with me. Young, cultured, relaxed, stylish guy, 59, with time to
hand, enjoys adventure outdoors and indoors, tennis and skiing, WLTM
spirited girl, to share similar interests.
237, MSW: Handsome, entertaining, successful male, youthful 55, 510, WLTM
attractive, slim, passionate lady, 40s, to share love, laughter and great
future together.

As has been mentioned above, the men sometimes use the expression for
fun or include it in their advertisements. This fact can be connected with the
qualities that they wanted their partner to have, e.g. GSOH, being fun and witty. It
seems to be important for the men to have a partner who is not boring, can
understand their sense of humour and does not take the things too seriously, which is
expressed also in the last mentioned advertisement containing laughter.
Some of the men mention romance as a part of the intended relationship:

192, MSW: Attractive, intelligent, warm-hearted man, 51, seeks lady, similar age,
for nice outings and a real, old fashioned romance.
225, MSW: Gentleman, 59, late 50s, likes theatre, eating out, weekends away,
looking for love and romance.

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311, MSW: Young, active, personable male, 70, 510, full hair, good lifestyle, seeks
fun-loving, curvy lady, 45-60, for lovely romantic times together.

This finding is quite unexpected, since according to the stereotypes, men do not
have a liking for romance. This reason why the men use the word romance is
possibly connected with the same reasons as the use of the adjective romantic by
mens self-description mentioned in the section 7.4.1.3 and these are to touch
womens feelings and attract them to answer rather than to show off the desire for
romance (the majority of them).
The men who do not mention the type of relationship like friendship,
having fun or romance, usually desire to find a new beginning or they are quite
resourceful and use metaphor:

7, MSW: Advertising myself. Im 50, in Chesh, living in a good life. Looking to

share lifes pleasures with a new beginning
183, MSW: Assertive, tall, distinguished male, 54, with an eye for the
unconventional, seeks tactile female with an inquisitive mind and warm
heart, to embark on a voyage of discovery.

7.4.4 Summary of mens advertisements

After the analysis of mens advertisements, some pieces of information have been
discovered. On the whole, the men find their own success highly important, they
often identify themselves on the basis of their profession (businessman, architect
etc.), and if they do not do so, they usually emphasize adjectives like intelligent,
successful or educated. Otherwise, the men are not as inventive as for describing
themselves, their potential partner or the intended relationship, they often use
traditional adjectives, expressions or labels (mentioned in a more detail before).
Concerning the most unusual advertisements, two of them were chosen for their
overall uniqueness. The first advertisement is rather unclear and was mentioned in
one of the previous chapters, the second one is based on humour:

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152, MSW: There across a crowded room, a glance of a sensual being. Hey there,
juvenile delinquent, early-60s, wants to cause trouble.
304, MSW: Wanted by tall, slim guy, 57, who is ugly, boring and poor: a similar
girl, for lifetime partnership. Listen to my voice box for the real me.

7.4.4.1 The typical mens advertisement

According to the gathered facts about mens self-identification, description of their

appearance, qualities as well as description of their partner and intended
relationship, the typical advertisement, which would probably have the least chance
to attract, is possible to be created:

Attractive, slim, tall male, 40s, professional, successful and solvent, seeks
intelligent, fun, sensual lady for fun and good times.

7.5 Gender differences

This section will summarize the differences between the men and the women on the
basis of their self-description, partner-description, intended relationship and
explicitness of their advertisements.

7.5.1 Self-description differences

Self-description is very important for both the women and the men. They probably
realize that the way and words they choose for their self-description are significantly
more important than their partner-description and have a great impact on the readers.
Concerning the self-identification, both the women and the men use gender labels; it
means lady-gentleman, female-male, and woman-man most frequently, although not
in the same order (see Figure 22).

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As it is recognizable from Figure 22, the women like identifying themselves as the
ladies, which means they intend to display their feminity and nobleness while the
men use male for their self-identification as well as profession, which is not
described by the women much. Another marked difference has been found out; a lot
of women describe the colour of their hair and even use it for their self-
identification, while the men do not mention it at all.
Dealing with the appearance, Figure 23 illustrates the fact that most men do
not describe their appearance at all, while the women are particular about
mentioning their appearance and its individual components. This fact corresponds
with the stereotype that appearance is more important for women rather than for
men, the women probably believe in attracting more men with this way.

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 Focusing on the qualities, some considerable differences have been found
out between men and women (see Figure 24). Unlike the men, the women do not
attach importance to their success at all but they emphasize their feminity. They
probably intend to attract more men by typical womens qualities, since they may be
persuaded that men desire to have such a woman along side. Actually the men
mention their masculinity as well, not exactly with the word masculine but with
using the adjective successful or mentioning their prestigious profession, since this
is generally presupposed by the real man.

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7.5.2 Partner-description differences

Neither the men nor the women deal with the partner-description so thoroughly as
with their own description, as far as the majority of them is concerned. Some
differences can be recognizable only in the qualities which the men and the women
require from their future partner (see Figure 25). There are considerable differences
in mentioning success that the women wish their partner to have (while the men do
not deal with this item at all) and in charisma which the women consider to be
important as for their ideal partner. Besides, the men really require feminity as the
women mention in their self-description.

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7.5.3 Intended relationship differences

Probably the greatest gender differences lie in the type of the intended relationship
(see Figure 26). The women are looking for either long-term relationship or simply
relationship, the men often do not specify the relationship much, they focus more on
having fun, enjoying good times and adventure. Perhaps they do not want to
promise lifelong relationship, if they do not know the women yet and they keep
freedom for what will happen. On the contrary, the women desire a relationship and
mention it in their advertisements, probably for that reason to receive only serious
answers.

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7.5.4 Explicitness and implicitness in the advertisements

In terms of explicitness and implicitness, majority of the advertisements can be

considered to be quite explicit. They usually express who their creators are looking
for and for what purpose. Some of the writers (usually the male writers) are not
explicit in the intended relationship, which was suggested in the very previous
section, they do not clearly mention the type of the relationship, sometimes they use
expressions such as for not too a serious relationship, which hides more
possibilities to interpret. Some examples of implicitness were found by the women
as well, e.g. the advertisement, whose creator is looking for Richard Gere (described
in section 7.3.2.1). Generally speaking, the advertisements do not contain significant
gender differences in explicitness and implicitness.

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8 CONCLUSION

The aim of this thesis was to analyse mens and womens advertisements from the
sociolinguistic and discourse perspective and explore whether there are considerable
differences between genders and of what nature these differences are.
The corpus included 553 personal advertisements published in two issues of
The Times, which was quite enough to realize a thorough analysis. The proportion of
mens and womens advertisements is not the same; there is a group of 242 womens
advertisements and 311 mens advertisements in the age between 20 and 79 years.
The primary sources for the theoretical part were works by Yule, Cook, Coates,
Reah and Vlkov. The practical part consists of five sections (see sections 7.1
7.5).
The first section (see 7.1) dealt with brief analysis of the levels of language.
From the lexical perspective it was found out that the advertisements provide very
rich and assorted vocabulary as far as using adjectives is concerned. From the
phonetic and phonological point of view some elements of alliteration are often
used, such as stylish, stable, solvent WLTM etc. Some writers add a motto or a
slogan to the beginning or to the end of their advertisement, e.g. A breath of fresh
air.
The following section (see 7.2) focused on the structure of the personal
advertisements. It was discovered that the majority of the women as well as the men
follow the pattern according to which they describe themselves, then they use a verb
expressing a wish to meet a partner, then the partner is described and all the pattern
is finished with the type of intended relationship.
The third section (see 7.3) concentrated on a thorough analysis of the
womens advertisements from the perspective of self-description and partner-
description as well as the intended relationship. The first part of this section (see
7.3.1.1) dealt with the self-identification of the women and discovered that the
women use lady as the most frequent label, which should demonstrate their great
manners. The second part (see 7.3.1.2) focused on description of womens
appearance and tried to prove the hypothesis that the women put emphasis on their
appearance. This hypothesis was proved, moreover, the women even mention colour
of their hair, eyes and some of them compare themselves to a well-known celebrity.

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The third part of this section (see 7.3.1.3) analysed the qualities that the women
attribute to themselves. The most frequently mentioned qualities were those ones
relating to intellect and sense of humour. Nevertheless, more women describe their
appearance rather than their qualities.
As far as partner-identification is concerned (see 7.3.2.1), the women often
label their ideal partner as man, nevertheless, they are inventive in this way as well
and use some special labels such as captain, beau, fireman etc. Appearance of
their potential partner, which is mentioned in the next part (see 7.3.2.2) is not much
important for the women, they prefer describing partners qualities (see 7.3.2.3) and
it was found out that the women desire to have a professional, intelligent and
kind partner. The very last part of womens advertisement (see 7.3.3) tried to find
out what type of relationship the women intend to have and discovered that they
usually desire a long-term relationship or simply relationship.
The fourth section (see 7.4) analysed mens advetisements from the same
perspective as the womens advertisements. The first part of this section dealt with
mens self-identification (see 7.4.1.1) and found out that the men identify
themselves as males or according to a prestigious profession. The second part (see
7.4.1.2) dealing with mens appearance discovered that the men do not attach so
much importance to their look as the women do. The third part of self-description of
the men (see 7.4.1.3) focused on the qualities and personality. It was found out that a
high proportion of the men emphasises the success and intellect.
Concerning the partner-description (see 7.4.2), the men are not much
inventive; most of them identify the dream woman as lady and do not concern with
womens appearance (see 7.4.2.1). If the men mention the required qualities (see
7.4.2.2), they usually desire for intelligent and funny lady. The last part of this
section (see 7.4.3) dealt with the type of relationship and discovered that the men are
quite careful in an exact specification of the intended relationship; they keep certain
freedom and want to have fun and enjoy good times with the women.
The fifth section (see 7.5) tried to summarize the main differences between
men and women. The major differences are in description of own appearance which
is very important for the women and much less for the men, in the mens
emphasizing of their success, which the women do not mention at all and in the type
of the intended relationship; while the women desire a certainty, the men wish to
have fun. These significant differences have been entered in Figure 27. As for the

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explicitness and implicitness of the advertisements, no significant differences have
been discovered, which did not prove the initial hypothesis about mens implicitness
in personal advertisements.

own appearance self-description intended relationship

emphasis on
men not much success and LTR or simply relationship
important prestigious
prefessions

women usually detailed no emphasis on having fun and enjoying life

description own success

Fig. 27 Major differences between men and women

Generally speaking, it seems that women and men have, apart from the
obvious verbal communication, a secret communication with one another. They
know what members of the opposite gender expect of their partners and according to
this fact they probably build their advertisements. For that reason the readers should
keep certain distance and should not rely literally on everything written in the
personal advertisements.
This thesis tried to go deeper into language of mens and womens
advertisements and to cover similarities as well as differences. It was not possible to
mention all the differences, though. Anyway, this thesis can perhaps serve as a
source for further research into personal advertisements and hopefully it offers some
new facts about mens and womens personal advertising.

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REFERENCES:

Bell, Allan. 1991. The Language of News Media. Blackwell

Coates, Jennifer. 1993. Women, Men and Language. London: Longman Group Uk
Limited
Cook, Guy. 2001. The Discourse of Advertising. 2nd edn. London: Routledge
Crystal, David. Davy, Derek. 2001. Investigating English Style. NewYork: Addison
Wesley Longman Inc.
Dontcheva-Navrtilov, Olga. 2005. Grammatical Structures in English: Meaning
in Context. Brno: Masaryk University
Gray, John. 1994. Mui jsou z Marsu, eny z Venue. Praha: Nakladatelstv Prh-
Martin Vopnka
Halliday, M. A. K. 1976. Cohesion in English. Longman Group Limited
McCarthy, Michael. 1991. Discourse analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Reah, Danuta. 2002. The Language of Newspapers. London and NewYork:
Routledge
Urbanov, L. & Oakland, A. 2002. vod do anglick stylistiky. Brno: Barrister &
Principal
Verdonk, Peter. 2002. Stylistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Vlkov, Jitka. 2000. The Language of Personal Advertising in Australian
Newspapers. Unpubl. Dissertation Thesis. Brno: FF MU
Vlkov, Jitka. 2003. Personal Advertisements in a Tabloid and a Broadsheet.
Brno: Studies in English S 9, s. 37-43.
Widdowson, H.G. 2007. Discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Yule, George. 2006. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Yule, George, Brown, Gillian. 1983. Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

Dictionaries:

Dictionary of Contemporary English. 2001. 3rd edn. England: Longman

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Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 2002. 5th edn. NewYork: Oxford University Press

Online sources:

Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Discourse analysis.

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis> 2nd February 2008
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Broadsheet.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadsheet> 6th February 2008
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. The Times.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times> 15th February 2008

Newspapers

The Times, December 7, 2007. London: Times Newspapers Limited.

The Times, February 15, 2008. London: Times Newspapers Limited.

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Summary

In my diploma thesis I have focused on analysis of personal advertisements written

by women and men. The corpus used for this thesis was comprised of personal
advertisements published in two issues of The Times.
I have attempted to explore how men and women describe themselves,
which adjectives and expressions they use and what they expect from their potential
partners. My aim was to find out if there are some considerable gender differences
and of what nature those differences are. I have supported my exploration with a lot
of examples.

Resume

Ve sv diplomov prci jsem se zamila na analzu seznamovacch inzert. Pro

prci jsem pouila inzerty ze dvou vtisk britskch novin The
Times.
Pokusila jsem se odhalit zpsob, jakm se mui a eny v inzertech popisuj,
jak pouvaj vrazy a co oekvaj od svch potencilnch partner. Mm clem
bylo zjistit, zda existuj znateln rozdly mezi mui a enami a jak povahy tyto
rozdly nabvaj. Sv tvrzen jsem podpoila uvedenm mnoha pklad.

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List of abbreviations used in the advertisements and the thesis:

GSOH good sense of humour

LTR long-term relationship
MSW men seeking women
OHAC own house and car
SOH sense of humour
WLTM would like to meet
WSM women seeking men

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